I’ve been sitting here at this window for so long, every minute making it harder to move. Sinking into this armchair. Dragged it over to watch what they’re calling heat lightning. Except I’ve seen heat lightning before. I even saw it green once, and this doesn’t look anything like it.
It’s so hot here in this chair I feel like I am actually melting into it. And I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it’s starting to smell weird. But it couldn’t be starting to smell this fast…
This supposed heat lightning looks more like those sun devils, like an oil spill on water, all rainbow and shifty. Something about moisture or crystals up in the air. They could’ve said something like that. Or made it sound like northern lights instead of just calling it lightning.
Makes it seem like they think we’re idiots. Some of us are. Me, for one. I don’t know shit about weather. Couldn’t even tell you how a cloud’s made except maybe—what—water steam sticking to other bits of steam. That, I get. Things gravitating to other like things.
Like me and my buddies. I can’t remember how we met, just… gravitated together. And if there’s something different about one of us, we just turn that part away. Like the moon, always showing the same face, keeping the rest to itself. That’s us boys. We keep our fronts out, and whatever else there is just doesn’t matter.
I guess this is one of those moments to keep my back behind me. I sure as hell can’t call the guys about this problem of mine. And I’m not talking about the lightning. I’m talking about the body I dragged in through the kitchen into the bathtub. I don’t even know where the strength came from, because for all my big personality I’m a pretty small guy.
I poured ice over her. Four bags from the 7-Eleven, carried back whistling like that’d make me look casual. Sun was just setting when I saw the sky flicker start up. I put the radio on while I was dumping the ice, not even thinking What now, Brad?—just letting the guy on the radio talk about the lightning.
Then I grabbed a Heineken and pulled this chair into the room she called the Tower—octagon shape, six windows, all of it pointed right at the show outside. Maybe I never sat in this chair before because it feels like it’s eating me. My ass is sinking, sides curling up like it’s alive. Like one of those plants that pretends to be leaves and then eats bugs slow enough you could almost see it.
The heat lightning’s got this slow crawl to it—gotta blink to notice it’s changed. The more I stare, the more I’m not even sure I’m seeing it at all. Maybe it’s my head messing with me. That’s when I notice there’s a sound.
I can almost—not—hear it, so I turn the music off, and I realize that same Oasis song’s been going for a while. My favorite. Was even playing when… you know. My cheeks get hot thinking about it. Not remembering it exactly—more like that part’s missing from the tape—but remembering right after. Her lying there.
So what’s the plan, Brad? Ice melts. And in this heat wave it’ll melt quick. Then it’s just a bath. Then what? Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to see the boys, have a couple beers, talk crap, kick around what that thing in the sky is. Let my mind run on something else.
Maybe it’ll be like when you’re fixing an engine and you can’t figure out what’s wrong, and then someone says something and bam—you got it. Like you’ve known the answer the whole time. Then the solution is easy, just follow the steps. Maybe that’s what I need. Find some way to fix it.
But then they might ask where she is. And maybe I’ll let it show for one second. And if I turn the wrong way, if I let them see the far side of my face—even for a second—that’ll be the first brick falling in the whole wall of my life coming down.
Did I do it? Have one of my episodes, as she calls them? But it never gets that bad, does it? Can’t ask her now…
This chair’s really got me now. I’m not sure I could get up if I wanted to. Springs feel like they’ve uncoiled and are curling around me like… what do they call ’em… the curlicue arms vines grow. Funny thing, because this ugly chair’s got this ugly navy blue and gold tendril vine pattern all over it. Maybe that’s where I got the idea.
I think of that movie we watched—me and her—about the thing that grew vines into people. It had these curly tendrils that looked alive, almost like they had personality, like they were looking at you while they curled around you, paralyzing you. There was this nasty scene where the vines went in a guy’s mouth and came out his eyes. She covered her face. Couldn’t watch. I thought it was funny. Sweet, even. I put my hand over her eyes, said, “I’ll tell you when it’s over,” and I kind of caressed her closed eyelid, it felt like such a strange, intimate thing to do, to touch someone there. And when it was over, I said, “It’s ok,” and she’d looked up at me, those big brown eyes of hers. Made me feel bigger, like I could protect her or something.
Guess that’s over now.
Those big brown open eyes.
Wish I could remember what those plants use to break stuff down, like some sort of acid or something to dissolve their victims. Think I saw it in slow motion once—a fly just dissolving on the leaf, turning their victims into nothing. Not “victims.” It’s just nature. Nothing mean about a plant. Eat or be eaten. But I wonder what it uses to… you know… dissolve the…
This piece was my after-write (you know, like the image you see after looking too long at a bright light?) for the “Weather Reports” project by Jon T. I had already written my submission and was haunted by it. Brad came out of nowhere and wrote this piece without much help from me.
To read my actual submission to “Weather Reports” please click here:
Video and sound by moi.
